


Chemical Reactions

by hobbitsdoitbetter



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Confused Molly Hooper, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, Love Confessions, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sad and Sweet, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Relationships, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Slow Burn, Trauma, Trust Issues, Unrequited Love, Use Your Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitsdoitbetter/pseuds/hobbitsdoitbetter
Summary: Bruised knuckles, bruised trust...In the aftermath of Sherrinford, Molly Hooper struggles to understand what's going on between herself and Sherlock Holmes...Originally posted on tumblr as the Iodine Trilogy.





	1. Iodine

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine. Originally posted on tumblr. 

* * *

**\- IODINE -**

* * *

 

“How did this happen?”

Molly takes his hand. Looks at it. The knuckles and fingers are bloodied. Sore. Skin scratched and torn open, elegant tendons swollen. Bruised. It’s painful to look at. 

He flinches and instantly she drops his hand. 

She’d forgotten how little he likes to be touched, and while she might still be angry at him over that bloody phone-call, nevertheless she can see that he’s had a hard time of it. She doesn’t want to make it worse. She never wants to make it worse, not with him. Not ever. 

So she looks away. Tells herself to let it go. 

_He came over to apologise about earlier; what more does she want from him?_

_Something he can never give her, her heart whispers, and despite all she knows, all she understands and values about their friendship, it still makes her heart twist in her chest._

She stands, about to walk towards her bedroom- what the hell does she want in there?- but before she gets a step away he reaches up. Grabs her wrist. 

“Molly,...” he says, and there’s something in his voice, in his expression, that she’s never heard before. Something she didn’t think was in him. 

She turns to look at him, eyebrows raised in question. 

He opens his mouth, once, twice, but nothing comes out. 

He does not, however, let go of her hand. 

“Can you patch me up a little?” he says eventually. “I know it’s late but, well, John’s asleep.” He tries a smile but it comes out wrong.Stilted. “I didn’t want Mycroft’s boys doing it-”

She frowns at him- “why?” and again he flinches. Again he grows still, as if he’d steeling himself to take a blow.  

She didn’t think mere words could do that to him. 

“I wanted you,” he says quietly, so quietly. His hands have a slight tremor now. “I wanted...” His fingers’ grip tightens on hers, but he says no more. Merely stares down at their fingers, pressed together. Held together. 

It occurs to Molly that he looks like he’s got a lump in his throat and she’s surprised to realise that she doesn’t know what to do about that. 

But she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t leave. She knows she should, that she’ll never get him out of her system if she does this. Knows the only good thing about finally saying the Dreaded Words out loud was that it might mean she could finally be free of him. Of this. But that won’t happen if she lets him stay here again. If she patches him up, business as usual, again. If she pretends that nothing happened tonight, and lets him pretend the same, then nothing will change. Nothing will ever change between them, and that’s not something she’s sure she can bear. It’s not something she thinks she should try to bear. 

And yet... 

“I’ll get the kit,” she says quietly. He breathes out at the words, shoulders sinking with the release of tension. “It’s about the only thing that Mycroft’s boys didn’t upend, I’ll just go get it from the loo.”

“Thank you, Molly,” he murmurs. “I-” Again his words stop, voice catching as she turns away. 

Again he doesn’t seem to know what to say to her. 

Before she can move however he brings her hand to his mouth. Presses a small, odd, chaste little kiss on it. It makes Molly’s heart flip and she hates it as much as she loves it, just as she hates him in that moment as much as she loves him. 

_Why does he always manage to do this to her?_

“I didn’t know I was going to do that.” He looks at her. “Was it alright?”

His gaze is heavy on her as he asks it, his tone almost... tentative. 

Not knowing what to say she takes her hand. Makes for the bathroom. She doesn’t know what else to do. His eyes bore into her back all the way there but she doesn’t look at him. She can’t. She won’t. 

She doesn’t know how to deal with this and she doubts he does either, if he’s acting like  _that_. 

When she gets back he’s taken off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves. Looking at him like this, Molly is overcome with a sense of hopelessness. Of bewilderment at what his mere presence can do to her. 

Nevertheless she takes his hand. Starts cleaning it.

She can still feel his eyes upon her.  

He doesn’t make a sound, not even when she adds the iodine; when she looks up at him to check why, he merely smiles at her wanly. Gestures for her to continue. 

“I know I’m in good hands,” he tells her. “I’m...” He seems to have to force himself to say it. “I’m always in the best of hands, when I’m with you.”

If only Molly felt she could say the same. 

* * *

 

Eventually she finishes. Goes to stand up. He rises with her, eyes still on her, and walks with her to her bedroom. At this she does baulk- “Not tonight, Sherlock, I can’t-”

“I need to know you’re safe,” he says softly. “I need to know you’re alright, after, after everything...”

And to her surprise, rather than follow her inside or argue, he sits down beside her bedroom door. Leans his back against the wall, his legs spread out in front of him, his eyes closing, head drooping drowsily. 

He looks so tired it makes her wince. 

“I’ll be fine right here,” he tells her. “Go into bed. Get some sleep.” 

Frowning, wondering whether this is another try to elicit sympathy or another game, she nods. Goes inside her room. She’s not inviting him in tonight, she tells herself. She hasn’t the strength. She hasn’t. 

She doesn’t care if that makes her a bitch. 

* * *

 

She expects him to come in in the night. Commandeer the blankets. 

She expects to wake up with him in her bed, and she expects to feel that familiar, aching longing for what she can’t have when she does. 

Instead she finds him the next morning, laid out on his back beside her bedroom door. On the floor. Using his coat as a blanket, one of her sofa cushions as a pillow. 

He looks younger in sleep. Less powerful. Less dangerous. 

He is still however, achingly alluring to her. 

“I had to know you were safe,” he says when he wakes, sees her staring at him. 

The words are matter-of-fact, but the look on his face is anything but. 

Eventually Molly has a shower. Goes out to work.

He’s still there when she comes home. 

This time though, there’s food in the house. A change of clothes for him. And for her, a bouquet of yellow roses, which surprises her because she doubts he’d remember they’re her favourites. He might deduce, but surely he wouldn’t remember? 

They sit and they eat dinner and she checks on his bandages. 

That night he sleeps in her bed, by her side. Sure that she’s safe. Sure that she’s still willing to be near him. 

Molly lies in the dark and listens to his breathing and wonders where on earth things go from here. 


	2. Saline

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit, and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine. 

* * *

**\- SALINE -**

* * *

 

He doesn’t go home that night.

Or the next. 

Or the next. 

It’s only on day five that John mentions- casually, the way only John Watson could- that he has no home to go to, since Baker Street was attacked. 

“Well,” he amends dryly, “not so much “attacked,” as “bombed.” Thanks a bunch, Eurus.”

And he goes back to feeding Rosie. 

The little one squeals with laughter. 

On finding out that Sherlock’s erstwhile refuge has been snatched from him by the same mad sister who targeted her, Molly feels a familiar rush of mutually incompatible emotions: fear, that he could have been hurt, that she could have lost him. Pain at what the destruction of his home must have done to him, a homebody in so many ways. He’s been hurt, she can see that, and oh she hates that anybody hurt him, almost as much as she hates that she can’t be the one to soothe him through it. She knows that well enough by now, no matter what her treacherously soft heart sometimes says. 

But more than anything- and she’s not proud of this- she feels a rush of irritation, no,  _exasperation_ , that it didn’t occur to him to tell her what happened- 

_As so often happens with Sherlock, it feels like he’s decided to move in with her and he hasn’t even bothered to ask whether it’s ok._

_In fact, since Sherrinford and that Damned Phone-Call, he has resolutely avoided asking if anything he does is ok._

And so, though logically Molly knows that’s unkind, and probably unfair (it’s entirely possible it hasn’t occurred to him that he  _should_ ask) she nevertheless feels herself gritting her teeth around him. A knot forms in her stomach whenever he’s near-  _Something which is happening more and more these days._

For though she can see he’s trying (he brings in takeaway, cleans up after himself, even says please and thank you without being glared at) she finds that she can’t bring herself to relax in his presence. She can’t seem to let down her guard around him. She doesn’t understand it, not fully: it feels like she’s being forced to accept something she doesn’t want to accept, and it’s making her feel trapped-caged- disregarded-  _Why is it he always manages to make her feel disregarded?_

Every time she tries to summon her words to ask though, Sherlock immediately freezes. Stares at her. 

He looks at her the way another man might look at a hungry snake, and it makes her heart twist.  

His cheeks go pale, body tensing as if preparing himself to take a blow, and  though Molly knows she should just make herself come to the point, though she knows he’s probably trying to manipulate her into keeping quiet and not discomfitting him with her feelings, she finds she can’t speak. The words will not come. 

Instead she finds something else to do. Something to distract her. 

If Sherlock notices how tense tense all this is making her, he gives no indication. 

Rather, he smiles to himself. Relaxes. Does something-  _God help her_ \- thoughtful, like putting away the dishes, or offering her the remaining hot water.  He even makes the bed, crawls in and lies beside her every night in the dark. Listening to her breathing, she thinks. Making sure she’s still safe, she’s sure. 

Every morning she wakes up with his arm wrapped securely around her waist, his nose buried in her hair, and oh how it makes her ache. Oh, how it makes her wish that things were different. 

 _I should be free of this,_ she finds herself thinking sometimes.  _I should be free of him._

_I said the words and he said them back in the only way he can, and now I should be free._

But though she knows that, and though she knows she should be touched by his desire for closeness- knows, in fact, that on some level she  _is_ \- she still finds it difficult. 

She’s not an experiment, she finds herself thinking sometimes. She’s not an object to merely be observed, or a planet orbiting him, kept near merely because he wants it that way and bugger everything else. She’s a person, she tells herself. She’s a person who admitted she loves him, and who now knows what it’s like to hear him say “I love you,” even if it was a lie. (Because of course it was a lie, wasn’t it? He’d tell her if it wasn’t.)

 _That phone-call should have changed_ **something,** she tells herself,  _and yet it changed nothing at all._

_Which is, of course, the most painful thing in all of this._

For Sherlock wants to keep things as they were, that much is clear. He wants to keep her close, but not too close. Wants to keep her safe, which is, quite frankly, the last thing she needs. Their status quo is no longer viable, she wants to yell at him sometimes, but every time she opens her mouth to do so, nothing comes out. Nothing, nothing, nothing...  _Sometimes she wishes that all that was between them was nothing..._

And then, of course, at the worst possible time, she runs into Tom- 

Which is when everything officially goes to Hell. 

* * *

 

He’s not here to see her, he tells her. 

He’s not stalking her, he jokes. Well, not anymore. 

No, his mum’s come to Bart’s for an appointment and he said he’d drive her in, then home again. Make sure she got her pills, that sort of thing. Pick up some shopping, make her dinner... His Dad’s minding his new dog while he’s in the city, he only hopes the family pile survives it... 

He trails off, seemingly aware he’s babbling. Stares at her, that same slight blush to his cheek which she remembers so well. That same slight stammer in his voice. 

_He’s still the same old Tom, even after everything._

Molly is surprised to realise that the guilt of not being able to love him as she knows he’d loved her still eats at her, even after all this time. 

Nevertheless, she manages to be polite. Friendly, even. Asks after his family, their mutual friends. Even inquires what sort of dog he’d bought, since he’d been planning on getting one when they were still engaged.

 At this question his eyes light up and before she knows it she’s looking at photos on his phone, each one showing a bouncing, yapping, utterly adorable golden retriever- “I called him Goldie,” he tells her, “it just seemed to fit, you know?”- 

Molly’s about to laugh in agreement when she sees a blur to her right. Belatedly realises the door behind her has banged open. 

Suddenly Sherlock’s in front of her, between she and Tom, and he’s glaring at the other man with an absolutely thunderous scowl. Hands on his chest, pushing him away from Molly. 

The air is thick. Electric. 

You could cut it with a scalpel. 

Not sure what he could have done to elicit such vitriol- and never having been the sort of man who enjoyed physical confrontations- Tom pulls back. Looks at Molly in question.

 “Something you want to tell me, Mols..?” he asks, eyebrows raised mildly. 

He keeps a wary eye on Sherlock. 

“She’s got nothing to tell you.” And Sherlock pulls back. Crosses his arms belligerently over his chest. He glowers at the younger, slighter man with an expression which could strip paint from walls. 

Molly feels her annoyance flare. 

“ _She_  can answer her own questions, thanks,” she bites out, glaring at Sherlock. 

He turns to her, his expression somewhere between bewildered and annoyed, and glowers down at her. She stares right back at him. 

Though he’s using his height to tower over her, she doesn’t move back an inch. 

Their face-off is broken by Tom’s sigh; they both turn to look at him. “Nothing’s really changed, has it?” he asks her, and there’s something slightly accusing in his voice now. Something almost ugly. 

Molly opens her mouth to reply but Sherlock speaks over. “Don’t speak to her that way,” he snaps, as if he hadn’t been every bit as presumptuous and rude just a moment ago. “Apologise,” he adds, his voice turning crisper. Sharper. 

Suddenly he’s the Sherlock Holmes the world knows again. 

Unimpressed by either of them, Molly rolls her eyes. Gestures to the door. “You should go, Tom,” she tells him, and if her voice is a little colder than before then so be it. 

There’s quite enough masculine egotism floating around already, thank you very much. 

Tom harrumphs, martyred, and she is viscerally reminded that it wasn’t just her feelings for a certain consulting detective which ended their engagement.  He makes a move towards her, probably to shake her hand, but Sherlock physically blocks him. Opens the door and ushers him through it through sheer force of glare. When the door closes behind him he turns to Molly. Glares at her now.

“You shouldn’t have been talking to him,” he says sharply. 

“I beg your pardon?!?”

Molly’s voice is loud enough to make him jump, but though for a moment there’s contrition in his eyes, he easily banishes it.  _He’s good at that._ Rather, he replaces it with the smug, condescending tone she hasn’t heard him use on her in years. 

It seems designed to make her see red. 

“It’s kinder,” he says, as if explaining something to a slow child. “He’ll never get the message if you keep on-” 

“Keep on what?” she demands. “Being polite? Talking to him? Not glaring at him like a toddler who’s had his favourite toy stolen-?”

Anger flares in his eyes now. “I was not behaving like a toddler.”

“No,” Molly snaps back, “you were behaving like a, like a jealous bloody boyfriend-”

He blinks in shock. Looks down at her. 

Suddenly, though his gaze is on her, she can tell he’s buffering. 

His hands have clenched, fisting at his sides. “Shouldn’t I-? I mean, isn’t that-?” His expression clears and suddenly there’s something so, so bereft in it. So lost. 

 _What the Hell is he playing at?_  Molly thinks

“That’s not what you want?” he asks, and his voice is so much softer that any other time, it might break Molly’s heart. 

_This isn’t any other time, however._

Though she knows, deep down, that it’s stress and tiredness and frustration talking, nevertheless the words seem to pour out of her like lava out of a volcano.

“No, it’s not what I want,” she snaps, and she can tell she’s got to him by the way his face pales. She barrels on regardless. “You don’t have to pretend. You never had to pretend with me. But you don’t get to manipulate me, and you don’t get to avoid me calling you on your behaviour by acting like you’re upset.”

“You think I’m trying to manipulate you?” he demands. “You think I’d- That I’d- “ His throat works, hands clenching tighter. He’s squeezed his eyes shut. “After Sherrinford, and what happened, and everything I told you, everything I said,  do you still think that I’d, I’d  _manipulate_ you..?”

“I think that you’ve always manipulated me,” she snaps. “I think you’ve just been doing it more lately.”

He flinches, and it’s enough to make her stop. Breathe. 

Her hand goes to her mouth, covering it, almost like she wants to physically cram her words back in. She tries to pull together her emotions, get them under some semblance of control:  _Sherlock is Sherlock_ , she reminds herself darkly. 

 _Even if he’s not being fair to you, there’s no reason for you to act the same._  

“I know you don’t know how to talk to me now, after Sherrinford,” she tells him more softly, trying to bring her frustration with him under control. “I know that you’re tiptoeing around me, because you- You didn’t want to hurt me with what your sister made you say, and you still want to make sure that I’m safe and alright. I get that. I do. But...”

She sighs. Rakes her hand through her hair. Have they finally, finally come to it? 

“I know why you said it, Sherlock,” she says quietly and once again, he flinches. “I know that you were trying to save my life, and I know that you’ve been trying to keep me safe ever since. But I can’t- You’re smothering me.  _We’re_  smothering me. I know you don’t want things to change but they have. They have to. 

“I can’t live with things if they haven’t.”

And she shakes her head. Finally lets the tears which have been threatening for weeks well up. She gives a dry, helpless, hacking cough and it feels like every ounce of stress from the last few weeks is pounding through her, threatening to knock her flat. 

Slowly, slowly, he approaches her. 

Slowly, slowly, he steps into her space. Looks into her eyes. Tilts her head up to his. 

He has to lean down to do it, their height difference is so great. 

Time seems to sputter, speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Sensations come to Molly- the smell of his cologne, the heat of his hand at her cheek, the truly dazzling blue of his eyes- and yet she doesn’t pull away. She can’t. She won’t. 

_This is everything she’s ever wanted, isn’t it?_

The thought feels like it’s not really her own _._

But when he lays his lips to hers, when he kisses her, all she can think and all she can feel is _no, no, **no**! _ She doesn’t want a kiss to calm her, or disarm her. She doesn’t want a kiss he doesn’t really want, she doesn’t want a kiss that’s just another lie. 

She doesn’t want to kiss him unless he really means it and he doesn’t. He can’t. 

For the first time in their entire relationship, she feels herself accept that. 

He pulls back, eyes on hers. One hand is wrapped around her wrist.

“Pupils dilated,” he murmurs to himself. “Pulse elevated- But you’re not relaxed. You don’t want... You don’t want me.” He shakes his head to himself, frowning, but then- “How on earth could I fool myself that you would, after everything?”

And without a word he pulls away. Pulls back. 

It’s like he folds everything he is back inside himself. 

Molly stares at him, open-mouthed, and she honestly doesn’t know what to think or say. Things are happening to fast. Things are blurring, speeding. 

Sherlock shakes his head to himself, muttering. Rakes his hand through his hair. He paces once, twice, his agitation painful to see, his expression impossible to read. Molly tries to reach out to him, to still him, to get him to talk to her, but as soon as she touches his sleeve he pulls back. Stares at her. 

“I’ll be out of your place by tonight,” he tells her coldly. 

And then, as he always does, he sweeps out. Makes an exit. 

He still hasn’t explained what’s bloody going on with him. 

Numb, tired, Molly trudges back to the Path Lab. Back to her desk. 

 _What the Hell had just happened between them?_  

It’s only when Stamford offers her a cup of tea and the use of his office that she realises tears are still sliding down her cheeks.  

“Sometimes I want to punch Sherlock Holmes,” she hears Mike mutter, but despite everything she knows that she doesn’t agree. 


	3. Oxytocin

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit, and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine. Enjoy. 

* * *

**\- OXYTOCIN -**

* * *

 

Every trace of him has been removed by the time she gets home.

His razor in the bathroom, his hairbrush, his cologne... All of these are gone. The socks he had taken to leaving around the place. His Belstaff on the coat hook in the hall.  The smell of iodine and coffee which clung to him, it's been replaced by the stench of polish and air freshener and for some reason that hits Molly the hardest, because it's the ineffable  _himness_  of the scent that she's always loved. The Sherlock-in-a-bottle familiarity of it. As angry and uncomfortable as she's been these last weeks, she realises that she's nevertheless grown used to Sherlock's presence in her life. Her home. And now that's gone.

_That's gone because she made it go, finally. Made **him** go finally._

_And though she knows it's stupid, and counterproductive, she has the horrifying feeling that he's never coming back._

Bewildered, tired, and more than anything hurting, Molly drops her bag beside her front door and shrugs off her coat. Steps out of her shoes and walks straight into her bedroom. She steps over Toby, purring in his sleep beside the cooker.

By the time she's lying on the bed she's already crying, her body trembling as if it will simply break apart.

_Oh God._

She curls in on herself, arms wrapped around her middle. She has to hold herself together, she tells herself.  _She has to hold on_. The tears come hot and fast; big, fat, they slide down her face and soak into her top. Her pillow. Her throat's closed up, aching, and each sob makes her whole body jerk like a puppet on a string. On some level she knows that this is more than just the upset of Sherlock's departure, it's the culmination of everything in the last few weeks. The bomb threat to her home. His being here. Her hurt at his disregarding her. The pain of saying Those Words aloud to him, the way they'd made her feel like her skin had been flayed off and she'd been left shivering, defenceless- The way that pitying kiss today had left her shivering, defenceless-

At the though she buries her head in her pillow, the pain in her chest ratcheting up. She knows it makes no sense: She wanted him gone. For once he did as she asked him and now just look at her.

_She's bawling her eyes out over a man she wants to murder._

She's so far inside her tears that she doesn't realise he's entered her room until she feels the bed dip with another's weight. Looks up to see that unmistakable silhouette against her window.

“What are you doing here?” she asks but he doesn't answer. Merely continues to stare at her.

“I can't-” She hiccups, tears still falling, and tries again. “I- I need to be alone, Sherlock, I can't take care of whatever it is you need me to take care of right now...”

And she dissolves back into tears. Curls in on herself. He continues to stare down at her, his brow furrowed in thought. It's not his buffering face, and yet he looks open. Innocent, somehow. A boy with a puzzle, rather than a man.

“You were angry with me,” he says, more to himself than to her. “Why then would you be crying?”

“I'm- I'm upset, alright?” she says. “Can't you just accept that? I'll- I'll be fine when next you see me, I'll be able to help you with your next case-”

“That's not good enough.”

She glares at him. “Fuck off,” she says bluntly.

“I meant it's not good enough for  _you_.” And he shakes his head, edges nearer to her. She turns away, too upset to help muddle Sherlock through one of his human interactions, but he doesn't seem to notice. No, he just keeps staring at her, those too blue eyes intense in the darkness of the room.

Slowly, as if fearing to spook her, he shrugs off his coat. Then his shoes. He opens his cuffs, rolls his shirt sleeves up.

He lies down beside her. On his side, still staring at her.

His hand reaches out and he touches her face.

She flinches and he pulls back, but he doesn't pull away.

No, rather, he squares his shoulders and moves across the distance which separates them: When he's close enough he opens his arms and pulls Molly to him, cuddling her awkwardly against his chest. Murmuring to her that everything's alright. That everything will be ok. One hand comes up to cup the back of her head, the other rests loosely across her waist. There's space between them; Though Molly thinks his actions should feel forceful, they don't. They're... soothing, and that's bewildering too.

He keeps his eyes on hers the entire time and when she looks up at him his voice is gentle.

“It's alright,” he says. “It's alright, it's alright Molly.”

His hand tightens slightly on his waist, brows pulling together.

“Whatever it is, we'll make it alright.”

And to her surprise he starts sliding his thumb rhythmically against her hair, there where his big, hot palm cradles it. He does nothing else, doesn't pull her closer ot try to touch any other part of her. He just maintains eye-contact and strokes her hair. Breathes in time with her.

Molly doesn't know whether to laugh or continue to cry.

Slowly, though, slowly her sobs soften. Wind down. With him in the room she finds herself beginning to calm. (She doesn't know why). Eventually, though she doesn't mean to, she hushes. Stills. Falls asleep, the exhaustion of the day catching up with her. The exhaustion of the last few weeks catching up on her.

The last thing she remembers hearing is the sound of his voice and thinking how soothing it is.  

* * *

 

She wakes up late the next day; the sun's already high in the sky and she silently thanks Mike for telling her to take a mental health day last night.

Sherlock's still in the bed beside her, looking slightly ridiculous in his wrinkled trousers and shirt. He's looking at his phone. In the brightness of day she can see that his knuckles are bruised as if he's been in a fight and when he notices she's woken, his expression turns somewhat... sheepish.

It's an odd thing to witness.

“What happened to you?” Molly asks, not wanting to talk about yesterday quite yet. (What, after all, can she say?)

“Ah, that.” Sherlock holds out the injured knuckles to her to examine, as is their usual habit. As Molly gingerly tests his fingers' movements he continues to speak. “John and I had a disagreement,” he begins.

She looks at him.

“Alright then: John and I had a fight.” Again, that chagrined look. “A rather messy one, actually.”

“A Fight? About what?” She checks his thumb, letting go of his hand entirely once she's satisfied that it's not too damaged- With Sherlock, these things are relative.

The chagrined look gets worse.

“About you,” Sherlock says stiffly. “Or rather, about me. And you. And how I have... That is to say, what I have been doing with you since that bloody phone-call-”

Molly feels the pit drop out of her stomach. She's not ready to talk about this.

She's not sure she ever will be.

Sherlock is, as ever, oblivious, however. “Apparently, I have been labouring under a misapprehension,” he tells her. “One John is rather cross that I allowed to form, if I'm being honest.”  To her surprise, his cheeks have begun to tinge a little red. “You see, the thing of it is, Molly, the thing of it is-”

“I don't want to talk about this, Sherlock.” And she really, really,  _really_  does not.

She tries to get out of the bed, but even as she rises he catches her waist. Halts her movement. She's left kneeling on the bed, looking right at him.

Though his cheeks are getting redder, he manages to keep his tone soft. His eyes softer.

 _Oh God,_ she thinks,  _he's lethal like this._

“Please,” he says softly. “Please, just let me do this, Molly.”

She looks at him. “Why is it always me who's letting you do things, Sherlock?” She demands. “When am I going to get to say no?”

“You can always say no.” He meets her gaze levelly. “If, after hearing what I have to say, I assure you that you can say no. And in answer to your first question, it's because I am a pain in the arse, and I cock things up a lot more than you. “

A derisive snort.

“If you had my track record, I assure you that you'd be asking people for things too. But you don't.” A sad, crooked little smile ticks at his mouth. His eyes are fond. Gentle.  

“You're far too wonderful for that, Molly Hooper.”

Instantly Molly stiffens. Whatever she let happen last night, she's not having him lie to her.

“You don't need to say that stuff-” she begins, but he speaks over her.

“I don't  _need_  to say it, I  _want_  to say it.” There's frustration in his voice now. “I want to say that you're wonderful,” he tells her, more softly. “I want to say that you're beautiful- Which you are.” Something, some aching thing catches in Molly's throat, her chest, but before she can say anything he rushes on. “And I want to say- That is, I have to say-”

“Stop it,” she whispers, tears pricking her eyes again.

She can't listen to him, she can't hope for him. It hurts too much and always has.  

Maybe he doesn't hear her though, for in a strong, louder voice he says, “I love you.” A beat. “I. Love. You.” He takes a breath, kisses her forehead.

He sounds so proud of himself for saying as much.

“I love you, Molly Hooper, I'm just really shite at admitting it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “You don't,” she murmurs. “You can't. I can't-” She thinks, but does not say, that she can't let herself believe it.

_Not after all this time._

Rather than speaking, however, Sherlock takes her face in his hands. Tilts her head up towards him. Despite herself Molly opens her eyes and when she does what she sees makes her heart skip a beat in her chest. For there's no guile in his gaze, no lying. No subterfuge. He's neither smug nor cocky, in fact he looks rather... alarmed. Alarmed and trying not to show it. Desperate not to show it. He looks vulnerable and awkward and scared and it's that, that which pierces through her certainty, her absolute assumption that she couldn't be wrong. That he couldn't mean what he said he meant.

“You... You're not lying,” she stammers out and he nods. Gulps.

“Congratulations on your absolute grasp of the obvious,” he says. “Brava,” he adds for good measure, because he really is a git.

But though the words are forceful, he is not. Again he's wearing that expression from last night, the boy with the puzzle, the boy out of his depth. The boy who wouldn't know how to talk about his feelings if the fate of civilisation rested on his ability to say what he felt.

 _Goodbye civilisation,_ Molly thinks.

“So you... You want... You meant...”  

She can't finish the sentence but thankfully for her, Sherlock doesn't make her. Thankfully for her, he merely nods and then leans in. Presses a kiss to her cheek. Then her forehead. Then her temple.

“John said it was a Bit Not Good, yesterday,” he informs her. “When I kissed you without actually having told you how I felt.”

She blinks up at him, her skin still burning from where he'd pressed his lips to it.

“Why didn't you?” she asks faintly. “Why didn't you just say it?”

The colour at his cheeks gets worse. Suddenly he's having trouble looking at her.

“I told myself I didn't need to,” he says quietly. “I told myself you understood, because you let me stay, because you didn't send me away.” He shakes his head ruefully. “But I think really I didn't say it because I was afraid that you wouldn't say it back. I was afraid that in admitting it, you were finally free of me.”

Again that sad, crooked smile. This time there's real pain in it.  

Acting on instinct, Molly leans in to him. Presses her forehead to his.

“That's what Eurus would have wanted,” he tells her softly. “That's what, ultimately, that game was about. And she was so right about everything else, how likely was it that she'd be wrong about this..?”

And he shakes his head. Makes to wrap his arms around her, apparently in instinct, before stopping himself and looking at her for permission. Molly nods, opening her arms to him and then suddenly they're on their backs in bed, curled in that loose embrace again.

This time it feels... gentler.  

Molly frowns, staring up at the ceiling and looking back over the last few weeks with this new information. Thinking of the things he'd done- the food, the flowers, even the staying with her- in the light of his showing his affection for her rather than his showing guilt. In the light of a man who knows nothing about emotion trying to show emotion without having to say the words out loud because they were so frightening.

“You're an idiot,” she says eventually, and he laughs a little.

“I am,” he says, “when it comes to you.” Another small laugh. “A fool for love, isn't that what the song says?” And he turns on his side. Looks at her. Slowly, hesitantly, he reaches up and strokes his bruised knuckles along her cheek. “I am a lucky man,” he says, and despite everything, despite all she knows and suspects and has felt the last few weeks, Molly can't help herself. She reaches out and touches his cheek. Strokes his hair back from his face.

And then softly, gently, she presses her lips to his. Kisses him.

He breathes out a sigh of contentment as she does it and when she pulls back he smiles at her.

It's bright as a spring day.

“Will you do that again?” he asks, and she nods.

“Only if you'll do it to me too.” He swoops in, about to try, but she slows him with a hand on his chest. Looks in his eyes. There's something she has to clarify first.  

“I love you,” she says softly. _It feels so good to say i aloud._  “I have always have, Sherlock. But, but... It's not going to be plain sailing, you understand that?” he nods. “We're both going to have to talk, and make an effort, and make sure we give it out best shot, alright?” She bites her lip, suddenly nervous. “Do you understand what I mean?”

He nods. Smiles. Leans his forehead against her. “I think we shall have a lot to learn about one another,” he says. “But I'm game if you are... darling.”

And at the endearment he leans forward. Kisses her again.

It's soft and sweet and gentle. Molly feels it down to her toes.

With a smile she closes the distance between them. Wraps her arms more tightly around him. Their kisses are clumsy, and heated, and utterly, utterly honestly lovely.

With her arms full of the man she loves, Molly finally lets herself believe in Sherlock Holmes' love.

“Not before your bloody time,” he mutters when she tells him- Something she brings an end to by kissing him again. 


End file.
